Office of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford created an uproar when it ordered an alt-weekly with doctored photos of the mayor removed from city property. (Now Magazine)

(Newser)
–
When the cheeky Toronto alt-weekly NOW published nearly nude photos of its large and loud mayor Rob Ford—obviously digitally altered and under the headline "The Naked Truth"—the mayor's office probably should have just ignored it. Instead, it told all city of Toronto locations to "remove and dispose" of the offending publication. "Good job, Office of the Mayor," writes Gawker (sarcastically, one would imagine). "You just turned a mildly embarrassing local event into an international story about freedom of the press, thereby giving bloggers worldwide an excuse to republish the pictures that so offended you."

“We are outraged. As far as I've heard, there's still such a thing as freedom of expression in Ford Nation," said NOW's chief executive. But a Ford spokesman chalked it up to a misunderstanding by an upset member of the mayor's staff who inquired about city policy regarding publication distribution on city property. “Somewhere within that conversation there may have been a misunderstanding that we wanted it removed, and that certainly isn’t the case,” the Ford representative told the Toronto Star.